Allen Sees an Obvious Challenge as Well as a Great Opportunity with Revised 2020 Schedule

Tom Allen will lead his team into a gauntlet of a Big Ten schedule Image: Sammy Jacobs Hoosier Huddle

Written by Sammy Jacobs (@Hoosier_Huddle)

The Big Ten announced the conference’s ten-game conference only football schedule Wednesday morning and Indiana fans had to take a giant gulp. The Hoosiers lost three games in the non-conference slate that they should have swept. They pick up a game at Minnesota who should start the season in the top-25. But as Indiana fans may have been fearing the worst, head coach Tom Allen sees this as an opportunity for his program.

“It's a very obvious challenge, but man I see it as a great opportunity” Allen told Rick Pizzo during an interview with the Big Ten Network Tuesday morning. The challenge is obvious. Instead of following up the season opener at Wisconsin with Western Kentucky, Ball State, Connecticut, Maryland and Rutgers, the Hoosiers get a visit from Penn State and Illinois before hitting the road to take on Ohio State and Minnesota and finishing the six-game gauntlet with a home date against Michigan. Combined, those six teams won 60 games, two division titles, a conference title and all went to bowl games. The Big Ten didn’t do Indiana no favors early in the year.

The opportunity however, could be historic. The school record for Big Ten wins in a single season is six and it has only happened twice. The first occurrence was in 1967 when John Pont led the Hoosiers to the Rose Bowl and a Big Ten title. The second was in 1987 when Bill Mallory went 8-4 (6-2) en route to the Peach Bowl. The opportunity to match and even break that record is there.

“We're all about making history here Indiana” Allen said, “and I see this schedule and I say you know what, it's gonna give us a chance to win more conference games and Indiana has ever won in the history of this program in a single season. So that's our objective and that's the way I approach it .”

The Hoosiers went 8-5 (5-4) last season as they qualified for the TaxSlayer Gator Bowl and are primed to bring back a very talented team.

“We have a team last year that did some good things and and had a very good season” Allen reflected, “and that was the beginning for me and a building block for the foundation of our future so I'm excited for our kids and they've worked extremely hard has been a unique offseason, we've got challenges to this day, but we're going to face the challenges we're going to focus on that which we can control.”

The Hoosiers great opportunity of having an obvious challenge is set to begin on September 4th at Camp Randal Stadium in Madison, Wisconsin. You can find the 2020 IU Football schedule here.